I agree! Yes, even the part about the Britney Spears “Toxic." It was pretty bada$$, even more so to know now that it was originally written for Janet Jackson. There are a ton of things in our world that we have “guilty pleasures” for. I wholeheartedly agree with Dave Grohl in that people spend so much time and effort to hide them. You should enjoy what you want and when. It is part of you and who you are, no matter what it is. If you like certain Miley Cyrus & Katy Perry songs, so be it. It shouldn’t make you lose style points or affect how cool you are for enjoying what you like because someone else doesn’t. It’s a “monkey see, monkey do, I’d rather be dead than cool,” kind of thing.

I used to always defend my musical interests with a joke I heard from Comedian, Daniel Tosh whenever someone would impose their style of music on me.

Exactly…lol.

Here is a list of things that I don’t care if you don’t like them because I do, and I’m not afraid to say it:

-Electric Light Orchestra

-Xanadu (Cheesemobile? Yes, but Electric Light Orchestra did the soundtrack..boom)

-Police Academy 1-5 (Be honest, it was really all over after Guttenberg left though.)

As it pertains to training and exercise, we already have roadblocks and deterrents to our own self-image. Learn to exercise properly and avoid pain, but above all, do what feels right by you and feel free to express yourself to your coaches and trainers.

I had a client ask me at the end of a session recently, “don’t you do any bicep curls?” Allow me to preface that- he recently joined the gym coming from a big box gym full of “meat heads” and mirrors. He had always been lean and long of the limbs and had always had a hard time gaining size. Recently, he has been feeling better and working on gaining some size by increasing his eating habits and frequency to the gym to work towards that goal. So by performing bicep curls, in his mind, would equate to showing off his hard work. I had to step back and quickly remember my place as his coach and apologize for not programming them for him. If you really like to do bicep curls, do them. If you like having that “Friday night pump" before you go out, do it. Colin and I tease everyone about it when we do them in groups or classes here at 212. But, not only are they serving a purpose, most people like doing them.

I am not sure, but maybe, at some point, by the culture we helped create in our 5 plus years as 212 Health and Performance did we deter the traditional gym standards of having mirrors everywhere. Has this made any of our members less vain? As people have become in better health and social network savvy, when we feel good about work we have done it quickly becomes an event and a chance to allow people into our worlds. Should you hide your ideals, successes, weaknesses, and short comings? Or wait until you have the right audience? Well, I would say if you are attempting for the latter, start by creating a better circle of genius around yourself. Because it would seem you are already hiding from who you are and want to be.

This also translates into eating habits and guilt for eating specific foods or eating in general. Fellow trainer and nutritionist, Sean Flanagan, surmised:

“Some foods make it easier to move a little closer to your goals. Some foods make it a little harder to move a little closer to your goals. But even if your diet has all the so-called "perfect" foods, you can still under or over eat for your needs. Likewise, it's still possible to include 'treat foods' in your diet and still move closer to your goals if you're getting enough nutrition elsewhere and your calorie intake is spot on.”

So, all in all, don’t feel guilty for what you like and who you are. “They say” that everyone is basically an older version of the 15 year-old self. Which is fine by me, I still listen to the same music and have many of the same ideals.